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Anne Boleyn (/ ˈ b ʊ l ɪ n, b ʊ ˈ l ɪ n /; c. 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation .
- 1 June 1533
- Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
- 19 May 1536, Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London, London
- Elizabeth Howard
- Catherine of Aragon
- Jane Seymour
- Arrest and Imprisonment
- Duke of Norfolk
- Trial of Anne Boleyn
- Anne Boleyn Execution
- Sources
King Henry had become enamored of Anne Boleyn in the mid-1520s, when she returned from serving in the French court and became a lady-in-waiting to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Dark-haired, with an olive complexion and a long, elegant neck, Anne was not said to be a great beauty, but she clearly captivated the king. As Catherine had failed t...
At Queen Anne’s coronation in June 1533, she was nearly six months pregnant, and in September she gave birth to a girl, Elizabeth, rather than the much-longed-for male heir. She later had two stillborn children, and suffered a miscarriage in January 1536; the fetus appeared to be male. By that time, Anne’s relationship with Henry had soured, and he...
Seeing Anne’s weak position, her many enemies jumped at the chance to bring about the downfall of “the Concubine,” and launched an investigation that compiled evidence against her. After Mark Smeaton, a court musician, confessed (possibly under torture) that he had committed adultery with the queen, the drama was set in motion at the May Day celebr...
Led before the investigators (chief among them her own uncle, the Duke of Norfolk) to hear the charges of “evil behavior” against her, she was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower of London. The trial of Smeaton, Weston, Brereton and Norris took place in Westminster Hall on May 12. At the conclusion of the trial, the court sentenced all four men to...
As for Anne, most historians agree she was almost certainly not guilty of the charges against her. She never admitted to any wrongdoing, the evidence against her was weak and it seems highly unlikely she would have endangered her position by adultery or conspiring to harm the king, whose favor she depended upon so greatly. Still, Anne and Rochford ...
On the morning of May 19, a small crowd gathered on Tower Green as Anne Boleyn—clad in a dark grey gown and ermine mantle, her hair covered by a headdress over a white linen coif—approached her final fate. After begging to be allowed to address the crowd, Anne spoke simply: “Masters, I here humbly submit me to the law as the law hath judged me, and...
Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). Alison Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn(New York: Ballantine Books, 2010).
May 19, 2021 · On 19 May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, was executed by beheading within the confines of the Tower of London. She’d been queen for just three years.
Comparatively, Anne Boleyn’s execution was a relatively straightforward, albeit unprecedented, affair. On the morning of May 19, 1536, Henry VIII’s fallen queen ascended the scaffold, delivered a...
May 20, 2021 · As Anne Boleyn walked to her execution on May 19, 1536, legend has it she carried a prayer book, which she handed to a lady-in-waiting just before a sword struck off her head. Most...
- David Kindy
May 19, 2011 · Anne Boleyn (c.1500-1536) is one of the most intriguing figures in British history. Her love-match with Henry VIII and her subsequent execution at the Tower of London after only three years of marriage have inspired dozens of books and films. Was she a ruthless schemer or was her death simply a tragic consequence of court politics?
Aug 5, 2020 · On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn mounted the scaffold to face her executioner. The former lady’s maid had caught the eye of King Henry VIII over a decade earlier, and after years of holding off the king’s advances, Boleyn had finally agreed to a secret wedding.
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